


and though the world shifts

by 3dgrace (fixwithgold)



Series: Whumptober 2020 [4]
Category: Three Days Grace (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Angst, Bandom - Freeform, Blood and Injury, Claustrophobia, Gen, Isolation, Swearing, Tension, Whump, Whumptober 2020, because i'm not prepared for the existential crisis of writing that, i mean seriously yikes, idk what kind of apocalypse this is exactly sdfjdsf, let's just pretend nobody has other friends or family in this fic, pick your own era, tetanus risk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2021-03-08 05:07:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26830090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fixwithgold/pseuds/3dgrace
Summary: Whumptober Day 4Prompt: Running Out of TimeAdam and Neil look for supplies in a decrepit store after the world ends. This is a bad idea.
Series: Whumptober 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1947046
Kudos: 1





	and though the world shifts

Adam and Neil stood in front of what used to be a fairly large corner store that was on the ground floor of a building complex.

"Might not even be worth going in there," Adam said. "The whole thing looks like it's gonna collapse in a minute."

"We haven't seen any buildings come down that weren't already leveled by The Accident when we got to them. Let's just go in and try not to touch anything that looks like it holds the ceiling up."

It had been months since the world ended, and they still didn't know much more about it than that. On the first of March, they were eating dinner at a restaurant in Toronto like they always did before leaving for a tour. Adam and Brad went outside for a smoke when without warning, the power went out along the whole street, leaving them with only the headlights of passing cars and the glow of their cigarettes.

Then the headlights went out, the car noise faded, and they were plunged into almost total darkness and silence.

No crickets.

No light.

Nothing.

"What the fuck?" Adam asked.

"I don't know."

Hurried footsteps and the sound of a door opening.

"Hey!" Neil called. "What the hell's going on?"

"Over here!"

Barry clicked on his phone flashlight so everyone could find each other.

"All the fuckin' lights went out," he said.

"Inside, too? Where's everyone else?" Brad asked.

"No clue. It's weirdly quiet in there just like out here."

"Well, what the fuck?" Neil asked. His voice echoed strangely. Adam turned on his flashlight as well.

"All the cars are--" he pointed it at the road to reveal the dark and suddenly eerie procession of unmoving vehicles sitting in the road, "--still here?"

"Nobody's gotten out of them, though," Brad said. Barry walked up to the nearest sedan and shoved his phone back into his pocket so he could see through the dark window.

"There's no driver."

"Guys?" Neil said shakily. He moved Adam's arm up to point his phone toward the restaurant.

Or what was left of it.

In the time they'd been talking, it had been reduced to a pile of rubble like a hurricane had come through. The flashlight wasn't especially powerful, but it provided just enough light to see that many of the surrounding buildings were in the same state.

"Oh, shit," Brad breathed.

They spent the rest of the night looking for anyone else who might be around, but found nobody. The sun came up over the horizon and illuminated the ruins of the area. Not every building was wrecked; some just had broken windows or no damage at all, but enough were downed to make it look like a war zone. None of the cars moved, and none of them had any occupants. The lights still didn't work. By all standards, it was impossible.

But they had to move on from "it's impossible" to "what now?" quickly.

They'd just been calling it The Accident, since the apocalypse always seemed to have a dramatic name in movies and with the state of things beforehand, it was likely some kind of horrible mistake anyway. But whatever it was that vanished apparently everyone else, silently knocked down buildings, and brought the world to a standstill, it didn't look like it was going away anytime soon. And Barry was already kind of an apocalypse planner, so he insisted they start getting stuff together.

Adam and Neil were out looking for supplies in one direction while Brad and Barry went the other way. The corner store was promising, except for the condition of the building itself.

But they went in.

Most of the store was a mess of shelves and rubble, especially right in the center. The hole in the middle of the ceiling and exposed metal made it obvious where the debris came from. The area to the left of the fallen roof was fairly clear, but the larger area to the right was partially blocked off. There wasn't really enough food in the smaller area for two people to gather, and maneuvering through a small space full of rebar actually sounded better than counting granola bars in a small space with Neil. And Neil would probably agree.

"Gonna check if there's any way to get in there," Adam said, nodding at the blocked area.

"Fine. I'll start sorting stuff over here," Neil replied, dropping the duffel bag he'd found after The Accident and now used to carry supplies. Adam had a smaller hiking backpack, and he slipped the other strap that was hanging behind him over his shoulder as he went to inspect the debris.

At first, it looked like the chunks of roof and foundation were impassable, but a careful tug at some of it let him open up a way through into an isolated section of the store. He had access to one shelf that had some bags of chips stocked.

"I got through some of it," he called to Neil. He was about to start moving stuff through the hole in the debris, when he noticed a section that looked like it went into the wall; it was less concrete and brick and more metal bars.

"I think I can get through to more of the shelves, but it's pretty sketchy," he said, eyeing the exposed, jagged bits of metal that formed a sharp lattice.

"Need me to come do it instead so you don't get claustrophobic?" Neil asked sarcastically.

"Asshole," Adam muttered, then said louder so Neil could hear, "just try to figure out how many bottles of water you've got over there, if you can count that high."

Adam slid off his backpack and left it propped against the shelf, then yanked at one of the broken pieces of rebar at chest height. It stayed where it was, so he held onto it and stepped over another bar to start navigating the lattice into the wall, to the left, and back out and around the blockage. There were some bricks in the way, but he just moved those aside one by one easily enough.

Until he picked one up too fast and it threw off his balance. He grabbed randomly at the nearest bit of rebar to catch himself, but it came loose in his hand. There was a loud series of clatters and thuds, and something hit him in the arm.

He thought it was just a chunk of concrete until pain shot screaming through his arm and blood began to splatter onto the floor.

"Fuck!" he shouted, tossing away the brick he was holding. He looked from his bloodied arm to the two pieces of rebar laying on the floor, one clean and one painted red on one end, to the new wall of debris that had dislodged from the ceiling and blocked his exit. The dust was already starting to settle around it.

"What's happening over there?" Neil called. Adam couldn't answer for a moment as he tried to breathe through the pain in his arm.

"Part of the ceiling fell on me. My arm's cut open and the way I came in here is blocked."

" _Shit._ Alright, just stay there and wait while I come dig you out."

"What the fuck else am I gonna do?" Adam asked. He instinctively brought his hand up to cover the freely bleeding slash through his skin, but thought better of it and pressed it into his jeans over his thigh instead. Blood immediately began wicking through the fabric and his vision swam, though he wasn't sure if that was the pain, the blood loss, or the walls around him that were starting to feel like they were pressing inwards. He sat down on the dusty floor.

"Got through the first opening. Where am I looking for you?" Neil asked, closer than he was before.

"Go past my bag a few feet," Adam said. "Into the wall."

"Here?" Neil asked. Adam was about to ask him how the hell he was supposed to know where "here" was before he saw that Neil had poked two fingers into a gap in the new wall.

"Yeah."

"I can probably get through this pretty easily. How bad's the arm?"

Adam looked down at it and immediately regretted doing so.

"It's not great," he said. A clatter came from behind the wall.

"Put pressure on it so you don't bleed out."

Adam wasn't sure how much time passed before Neil broke through the wall. Between the bleeding and the small space, it just seemed like a better idea to zone out a little. But he snapped back when Neil pulled aside a large block of concrete.

"Alright, let's go."


End file.
